


Of Dust and Rain

by missmichellebelle



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: Fluff, M/M, New Relationship, Rain, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-28
Updated: 2012-12-28
Packaged: 2017-12-12 07:33:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/808958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmichellebelle/pseuds/missmichellebelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What was a short walk from Darren’s apartment to get bagels becomes a difficult treck through a sudden downpour, and, halfway between the shop and home, they have no choice but to hide away in the closest and most trustworthy looking building.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Dust and Rain

They aren’t even supposed to be out, but there are tiny nooks and crannies around the city where they can go and it’s okay. No one recognizes them, or they trust the people there not to sell them out. It’s a system that worked well for them in the past, when they were still only friends dodging rumors. Now, well… They can treat the rumors like just that, even if they ring a little truer.

But they hadn’t counted on the rain. What was a short walk from Darren’s apartment to get bagels becomes a difficult treck through a sudden downpour, and, halfway between the shop and home, they have no choice but to hide away in the closest and most trustworthy looking building. Chris picks a bookstore, one that isn’t a chain and is somehow still surviving when so many others have gone under. They can tell right away that it’s full of old books—secondhand, donated, found. Darren picks one up at random right when they walk in, and immediately sees the loping curve of writing in the margins. 

The shop isn’t empty, which immediately makes Darren feel a little wary. He can tell by Chris’s posture that he doesn’t like it much, either, but it’s still another five blocks to Darren’s apartment and they’re more likely to draw attention to themselves if they’re sprinting through the rain.

“Come on.” Chris looks as if he wants to grab Darren’s hand, but he doesn’t. He weaves back through the shelves, high as if they’re in a library, and running his fingers across the old, worn spines of books. Darren knows that Chris loves these sorts of stores, where the air smells heavy with books, where loved books come to rest and wait to be loved again. Even if he does feel uncomfortable, Darren can see the wonder and adoration that brims in his eyes.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Chris mutters, pulling down a thick book that proves to be a compilation of Shakespeare.

“Like what?” Darren asks, leaning against the shelf and smiling.

“Like  _that_.” Chris glances over the pages at him, and Darren catches the name MALVOLIO. “This is supposed to be a secret.”

“What? That you like Shakespeare? Because I didn’t know that, so it definitely counts as a secret.”

Chris rolls his eyes, snapping the book shut and slipping it back on the shelf.

“Just… Don’t follow me around.” Chris gives him a pointed look, and then starts down through the stacks again. Darren follows him—what else is he supposed to do?—until Chris gives an exasperated sigh and glares at him. Darren pouts, but it doesn’t work when Chris just turns the corner and walks away. Darren sighs, scuffing his foot against the floor and sticking his drying hands into his still damp jean pockets.

He doesn’t  _mean_  to look at Chris that way, he just can’t help it. Before, it felt weird to do it. Not in like, the bad sort of weird way, like it was wrong or something, but like… Creepy weird. It made Darren feel creepy weird, like he was watching Chris without his permission. Like he needed to  _not_  look, like he wasn’t  _allowed_ , and then he had to turn away before anyone could catch him.

And now it’s like he  _can_  look. He can look, and he wants to. He looks at Chris and Chris likes it. He likes it and he looks back, smiles, brushes his fingers against Darren’s skin. Sometimes he blushes. And Darren can look because he has the permission to. He doesn’t feel creepy when he watches the way Chris’s lips move when he talks, or how his eyelashes flutter when he yawns. And, yeah, okay, it’s kind of embarrassing when he gets caught up in trying to count the freckles that stretch over Chris’s cheeks and the bridge of his nose that he doesn’t hear what Chris is saying. But Darren thinks that Chris finds that endearing.

Maybe.

The store is quiet, but Darren can hear Chris humming. He hums when he’s not thinking about it, one of those side effects of having lives that are so often consumed with music. Well, Chris said not to  _follow_  him, but that doesn’t mean he can’t browse _near_  him. Darren is so awesome at loopholes.

The books vary from worn paperbacks to hard covers that don’t even have titles on them. Some of them are old, some are practically new. Darren is reminded of being in the library at college. He went there, sometimes, but mainly to come back  _into_  the stacks for… Not so savory of practices, he’ll admit. He imagines such activities with Chris… Imagines pushing him up against rows of books, hands pushing up beneath the thin material of his shirt, tasting the sweet skin of his neck…

Fuck. The rain needs to stop.

He knows that Chris is near. Well, he can see Chris’s hair through the gaps over the tops of the books. He wonders why Chris stopped, what he’s looking at.

He also really wants to fucking kiss him, but he  _really_  can’t. It sucks.

There’s a large book that might be some sort of encyclopedia or something, Darren isn’t sure, but he pulls it from the shelf at his eye level and then sets it quietly on the floor. He can see Chris’s ear, about three feet away from him, and he smiles. Because it might be totally lame, or cheesy, or something, but even looking at Chris’s ear is kind of awesome.

There’s a copy of  _To Kill a Mockingbird_  next to the gap, so Darren removes that. Except there’s a book on Chris’s side, so it doesn’t really do anything. Darren frowns at it, glances around surreptitiously, and then reaches through the gap to kind of… Shift it.

He ends up pushing it to the floor instead.

“ _Jesus_ —” Chris jumps, and then his attention snaps to Darren. “Darren,” Chris starts, in his warning voice.

“Wasn’t following you!” Darren immediately says in his defense, and Chris laughs, once.

“Just spying on me.” Chris disappears for a moment, then reappears holding the book.

“But this way I can look at you without it being weird,” Darren pouts.

“Mmm,” Chris tucks the book somewhere else, much to Darren’s delight. “You’re just enamored with a copy of…?”

“ _Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_. Obviously.”

“Obviously.” Chris rolls his eyes again, but his smile is fond. He settles his chin on the shelf, and Darren mirrors him. It’s a little ridiculous, but there’s no one around them. And, even if there were, what’s wrong with getting intimate with the shelving?

…okay, well, the owner might not like it very much, but still.

“You’re ridiculous,” Chris says, but he looks pleased with something. Darren wonders what.

“Ridiculous for  _you_.”

“Wow, really?”

“You like it,” Darren croons, eyes glittering. There’s a little bit of light hitting the left side of Chris’s face, casting the other half in shadow.

“I—”

“You are so breathtaking,” Darren says, not even curious about what Chris’s incomplete thought might be. “Did you know that? You are.”

“Darren…”

“I don’t tell you enough, but…”

“We should go.” Chris voice becomes insistent. Darren’s eyebrows raise, but he’s not exactly about to complain. What’s a little rain?

“Oh?” 

Chris disappears, heading towards the end of the stack, and Darren scrambles after him, meeting him at the end and swerving to walk by him in his aisle.

“Yes. Because you can’t put those eyes away.”

Darren closes his eyes, and he must nearly walk into something because Chris grabs his arm and yanks him sharply towards him.

“Not like that, you dork.” It’s half an insult, half a pet name. Darren loves it. “You’re just looking at me like…”

“A smitten kitten?” Darren suggests, tucking his hands behind his back. “I’m head over heels? Off the deep end?” Darren takes a step closer, looking intently at Chris and dropping his voice. “Like you’re my boyfriend?”

Even saying it makes something tingly spread out in his chest, and he can see the hardly tempered smile start on Chris’s face.

“I honestly don’t know what to do with you.”

“I was thinking an Avatar marathon?” Darren suggests, and Chris laughs quietly.

“Deal.”


End file.
